The presidents of Romania's 16 Courts of Appeal sent President Nicusor Dan a memorandum asking him to return the magistrates' pension law to Parliament for review, warning that the judiciary risks a "systemic collapse".
They argue that their concerns address issues not examined by the Constitutional Court, and that the President's role in promulgation is substantive, not "purely decorative".
"The memorandum highlights aspects that fall within the President's competence to assess, both regarding the timeliness of the law and legal issues not covered by the a priori constitutionality review. We stress that our request does not challenge the matters upheld by the Constitutional Court in its ruling of 18.02.2026. In line with jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of Romania, the President must verify whether a law reflects a real social, economic or political justification, correlates with existing legislation, and aligns with EU law, international treaties and ECHR case law," the document states.
The signatories warn that the new law could undermine guarantees of judicial independence and create major disparities between magistrates who retired before Law 282/2023, those who retired after, and future retirees. They note that pensions could drop by over 45% in less than three years, while contribution requirements increase to 35 years of work, including 25 years in the judiciary.
They also argue that magistrates already face the strictest regime of prohibitions and incompatibilities in the public sector, unlike other categories with similar or higher salaries, and that eliminating or drastically reducing service pensions amounts to discrimination.
The memorandum further notes that Romanian judges handle far heavier caseloads than their European counterparts, often in inadequate working conditions and with chronic staff shortages.
"Considering that, as all official reports and statistics show, Romanian magistrates have consistently, over the past 30 years, had to manage and resolve a far larger number of cases than their counterparts in other European/EU member states, and have done so under inadequate conditions (for example, at the Bucharest Court of Appeal and its subordinate courts, 6 - 7 judges share a single office), amid a major and constant shortage of judges and auxiliary staff, undersized staffing schemes, the absence or very limited number of judge assistants, the lack of concern or the failure of successive governments to ensure decent working conditions, and the legislator's inability to provide a predictable, coherent legal framework (legislative inflation and poor correlation of legal texts being among the factors that significantly hinder judicial work), we consider that, taking all these relevant circumstances into account, the adoption of this regulatory act goes far beyond what is appropriate, necessary and proportionate," they note.
The signatories of the memorandum also point to the "significant" gap between the pension regime of magistrates and that of Constitutional Court judges, who serve a maximum of nine years but retain far more favorable pension conditions.
In conclusion, the Court of Appeal presidents warn that raising the retirement age again and cutting service pensions risks triggering new departures from the system, making the profession unattractive to young jurists and deepening the existing deficit of magistrates. This, they say, threatens the protection of citizens' rights and could push the judiciary toward "an inevitable systemic collapse".
Comentează